As you may know I work in the
university . MY position is in the civil engineers dept in the secretariat . I
am in a specialty called subcontracted personnel ie indirectly involved with
the university (ie in the public sector ) via a contractor who is our ‘boss’

Sorry if this text is written
in very poor English , but I hope that you will get the idea and how the
problem goes now

This is a story of more than
20 years in the university .Those times I was not in the university as I was
working in the private sector (that time involved with sat antennas and TV
channels )

These times the public sector
stopped appointing people due to its maximum size IN a country of ca 10
millions there were more than 800000 people in the public sector . .Someone (politician?>
)invented the idea of appointing more people using external factors (say
contractors ) who carries out collecting people for work on either private or
public organizations AMd rthe contractor takes a commission of a 30% (with 23%
as VAT )

As about our university Auth (
the Uni of Thessaloniki )is the largest Uni in Greece with about 4000-5000
staff , 800-850 of them via subcontracted ie indirectly

.

And a notice about the
contractors : There are two main contractors ISS (formerly Aspis ) and Ikologiki
(Ecologics ) The first company uses personnel for ‘warehousing’ ie something as
like ‘cops’ who work for preservation of the buildings or even working on
offices as normal personnel . The later carries out cleaning the buildings
though a small part is used also as personnel.. I was member of the first
company for many years till this Arpil when for unknown reason I was replaced
by another of the other company and thus ‘transferred’ to the other . For my
bad chance the second contractor has a bad reputation of not paying on time.

Two years ago(9-10 ), we
entered into IMF’s austerity program. The money granted from the government
dropped to 2/3 of the original budget .

The most important is that the
previous government promotes a new bill that will surely ‘destroy’ the
universities by making them nearly as private organizations .

Our new rector (as well as the
whole community ) are stringent against this bill . However the former minister
in a Goebels way tried to impose it by any direct or indirect way . She has
also a personal revenge against our rector Mylopoulos , read next

This year except this bill
(which under the new government has been quite much softened tough still many
of the topics wil be applied ) there are other Goebbels like techniques
possibly coming from the former minister. Most of the newspapers ‘reveal’
violations of the universities’ money to be used in non related uses thus
destroying the good image of our education .As for example tough this year our
uni is ranked #200 in the world , the fake news of a refurbishment of a
nonexistent toilette for Eu 35000 (though in reality all this money used for
repairing two floors on the administration building ) or even a gift of an
Iphone to a actor who would help for teaching on the arts dept . (the real is
that a clerk who had a relation with her has gifted it and then fired )

Although you can say I am
biased towards the rector , I can assure that this is the truth ,as I have a
computer person who does the logistics there .

Another important notice: Two
years ago, before the today’s rector elected, advised not only us, the
subcontracted personnel , but also later demanded the government to solve this
situation , by stopping all contractors and absorbing all this personnel into
the university. Although there were 3 different scenarios on how to realize it
, the former Minister did nt accept it

Now back to granting. The
money granted by the government was quite low 25mil our of 40 mil required by
the university. And this money was terminated this July . Since ca 60% goes to
the contractors we stopped being paid in August. But ISS , a multinational
company , has financial background and can still pay her employees .

The society of subcontracted
personnel , knowing well this problem , decided after checking if the money was
deposited from contactors of sep 15 th to start strikes against the Admin
/(Rectorat? ) in order for the summit of deans to settle it .

The strikes then transformed
into sit-in strikes (and closure of the admin building )

And surely the university was
fool of junk /garbage (none )

However the dean summit
replied with a very generic form asking from the govt to grant the necessary
money , the struck people to stop closing the admin building , the contactors
to pay their personnel etc , tough they support our struggle

The next escalation of our
struggle is to close one building everyday . as for example last week , we
closed the Law school for one day and the next day the Philosophic school

In response the admin and the
summit (of deans /rector ) firmed the whole University for two days for the
reasons referred above

As in result in it unknown
what will be happened then . And about 600 out of 800 indirect employees are
still unpaid (most of them working in Ikologiki the contractor mainly in
cleaning )

And
hereare several updates after October

First an important notice : Before
being recruited to Ekologiki (meaning Eclogicsor hereafter EcoI have beenfor ca 10 years under the opposite company ISS
, a company/contractor recruiting people
mainly as security guards but alsorecruitingfor officer works as me). MY recruitment in Ecowas only for 4 months. Eco is contractormainly for cleaning facilities

IN mid November Eco’s contract with the UNi has been expired leaving ca 350
people out if work . Very few of them gained their position after being
themselves recruitedinto ISS ,and most
f themwere still expectingshould something happen with the UNi to
return to their positions .

CA 90 days after the
strikethere was avery controversial debate with out Union’s
summitwith a slightly short victory (only
17 votes over )to continue the strike .But
Policehas shuttered the strikeon the
Unis building and arrested several people
. it was something expected as thevice
- rector has warned our union’shead people otherwise to evacuate th4
building. After this, the building opened and theemployeesreturned to their positions back And
the union has beenshuttered .

IN middle DecemberISSwon a short program with workers
of Eco (anyone wanted to work) for ca onw weekjust for cleaning services

Twice a month it is rumored thatthe remain360 employeesfrom Eco will retirn back to their jobs . Some of them were
announced as contestsin the diavgia.grsitefor request of competitions . But due to other reasons (ot4er possible
contractors were against via legal ways ) most of them never realized .

The onlyrealizable way for cleaning facilitieswere with small contactors with a program of 3 times per
weekand ca 6 hrs per day

This (13)end of April thecontracts of ISS employeeshave beenterminated . Immediately ISSre-recruited
thembut in a different way: Instead of a common contact with the labor
union , the company provides a contractto each worker for signing together with a ‘ pricelist’ for the daily salarythat startsfrom 21.6 – 27.6
Euros with 6 hours of work . (460-560Eurosper month ) Thesalary before
April was800-900 Euros per month (for 8
hoursper day ) !!]

Not all workersaccepted this offer and denied signing .

Addingto this problem in the ‘students Club’ (where
my wife works ), ie that‘restaurant’ of
Students where most employees have beenrecruited
asguards since 90 ,althoughtheir main work is officersor working in the cooking facilities , the securitycompany demands themto applyas guards ! And attend to guard seminars inorder totake the guardcertificate

Both employees , from the
students club and thedenied , are now
under the samecondition . They haveto apply for the certificate . The onlypeoplewho stil do not know what happen are about 85-100, ie the employees who worked on Eco and were
officers ……